Sometimes the Nearly First glorifies the First...Incredible Story of a person who was nearly first to Climb Everest.

We all have learnt in School that Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary were the first to climb Mount Everest in 1953.

But today I read about people who were NEARLY the first to Climb Everest atleast 29 years before the Firsts. And more than reading that, I was saddened by the fact that they were nearly the first may be just because they never came back.

Yes one of them still lies somewhere around the Everest and the body of the other was retrieved 75 years later.  75 years after the expedition.

It was a British Expedition crew and its about two of them: George Mallory and Sandy Ervine.

Nobody other than the two knows if they really conquered the Mount Everest. Or may be their camera knows which is still missing.

On Todays date i.e. 7 th June of 1924 the duo went missing in an attempt of their ascent to the Mount Everest.

George Mallory was well known British Mountaineer and this was his third attempt to climb the Mount Everest.

At 8:40 am on 6 June they set off, climbing to Camp 5 (Camp 5 would be more than 8000 m above mean sea level).  

On 7 June they reached Camp 6. Mallory wrote he had used only 3⁄4 of one bottle of oxygen for the two days.

This was the last time the two were seen and they were not very far from the Summit of the Mount Everest.

But one of their fellow mountaineer who was on support role Noel Odell claims to have seen them after this also and that also nearly means that they had made it to the top.

Odell said:

At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.

Black spots as Odell saw must have been Mallory and Ervine.

The steps that odell is talking about here can be more clearly explained by this picture of the North face of Mount Everest:

The Three Steps are three prominent rocky steps on the north-east ridge of Mount Everest. They are located at altitudes of 8,564 metres (28,097 ft), 8,610 metres (28,250 ft), and 8,710 metres (28,580 ft). Any climber who wants to climb on the normal route from the north of the summit must negotiate these three stages.

At the time, Odell observed that one of the men surmounted the Second Step of the NE ridge. Apart from his testimony, though, no evidence has been found that Mallory and Irvine climbed higher than the First Step; one of their spent oxygen cylinders was found shortly below the First Step, and Irvine's ice axe was also found nearby in 1933. They never returned to their camp.

In 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition on 1 May, found a frozen body at 26,760 ft (8,157 m) on the north face of the mountain.

They were surprised to find that name tags on the body's clothing bore the name of "G. Leigh Mallory." The body was well preserved, due to the mountain's climate. A brass altimeter, a pocket knife and an unbroken pair of snow-goggles were also recovered from Mallory's corpse.

The 1999 research team returned to the mountain in 2001 to conduct further research. They discovered Mallory and Irvine's last camp, but failed to find either Irvine or the camera he carried.

Mallory's daughter said that Mallory carried a photograph of his wife with the intention of leaving it on the summit. This photo was not found on Mallory's body. Given the excellent preservation of the body, its garments and other items including documents in his wallet, this points to the possibility that he may have reached the summit and deposited the photo there.

Though everyone remembers only the First to do things. Sometimes knowing the NEARLY FIRST makes us appreciate the efforts of the First even more. 

The legend of Murphy's Law..

So many times I have heard and quoted Murphy's  law. Today my head asked the question Who is this Murphy? What actually is the Murphy's law? And the answer was interesting .

Murphy's Law is named after an American Development Engineer from the Wright Field Aircraft Lab, Capt Edward Aloysius Murphy.

The Murphy's Law was coined in 1948 when Capt Edward Murphy was using Strain gauges to measure the effects of Rapid deceleration on human body. In these tests they used Rockets to propel human being to high speeds and then hydraulic brakes to cause the rapid deceleration.

But during the course of the experiments the sensors were reading zero. It thus became apparent that the instrument was wired incorrectly by Murphy's technicians.
An annoyed Murphy then said something which turned into today's Murphy's Law.
'If that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will'.

Finally after brewing the above statement by Murphy and his crew, came to life the Murphy's Law:
If there are more than one ways of doing the job and one of them will result into disaster, then he will do it that way.

Though it wasn't officially quoted anywhere by Murphy. It was actually brought out by Capt Stapp the team leader of the experiments.

Though Murphy's Law was initially quoted many times in the aviation related publications in the US it slowly spread into various areas of human activities.

Corollaries of Murphy's Law:
Yhprum's Law: Is the reverse of Murphy's Law, hence written in the same way (read the name backwards). This corollary is the extra optimistic version of Murphy's Law: If anything  can go right it will go right.

Drucker's Law: The management version of Murphy's Law.
If anything can go wrong, everything else will and at the same time.

Many professors have said that Murphy's Law is a confirmation bias in which the investigator seeks out evidence to confirm his already formed ideas but does not look for evidence that contradicts them. It is a very valid point though.

But I think that shows the difference between engineers and Scientists & Professors.
Capt Murphy himself was sad that his statement was taken in the wrong sense; his intention was to teach us Defensive Design and not blame. But after all we are human beings we have the brain to misuse anything anytime and many times..

Finally the head got to know something interesting.

Interesting Facts & Stats about the World.

1) 13 million hectares of Forest is lost every year from our planet.
Though the UN's last year's number is smaller but still Forests of the size of Panama is lost in a year.

From 1990 to 2015 we humans have galloped 3% of Forest area from the planet.

2) Government's transport Infrastructure planning is measured by Rural Access Index which is percentage of Rural population living within 2km of a road in good condition.

India's Rural Access Index is 17%

China is at 32%

3) One third of worlds energy is consumed by the food sector and one third of the food produced in the world is wasted.

Even if a quarter of the wasted food reaches the hungry, 870 million people will be fed.

One more fact about food wastage: 

1500 calories of food per person per day is wasted in the high income countries (formerly termed as Developed countries by WB) of North America, East Asia and Pacific.

Note: India is categorized as a lower income country.

4) Individual internet usage as a % of population is highest in world in Iceland at 98%.

In India it is 18%.

And in Pakistan it is 14%..